The big tire companies are ahead of the others, as far as I can tell. From what I have read about the GP4000 S II tire, it performs as well as the rest of them (or better) and also has better flat protection. A breakthrough is when two conflicting criteria are somehow increased at the same time. The folks at Continental seem to have made several breakthroughs recently. I'd love it if you tried these and reported on them. I'm really curious, especially if you try the 28mm size. I prefer riding on that size and bigger but not smaller.